The Doctor's Thirteen Children
by thedoctorslittlegirl
Summary: We all know the story of the planet Gallifrey being destroyed in the last Time War, but it is said that the Doctor had thirteen children. Each of them was special in their own way, and the Doctor can't help but miss them all.
1. Adelina

The first child that the Doctor welcomed was a baby girl, he named her Adelina. Names had been both an important and important thing to the Doctor. After all, a name was your title in life it is the first thing that people learn about you. Then again, nothing defines you except for you.

On the day she was born, her eyes were a beautiful grey color. One that reminded him of the steam that came off tea kettles or the mist that covered the window when you blew on it. The mysterious color had been the girl's gift into distracting her father for hours on end. As she grew older, that color was never lost.

Adelina was the perfect first child, in a sense that she absolutely adored her younger siblings. Even despite being so close in age, she was always offering some kind of advice to her sister about the world or making sure her little brother didn't put the sonic in his mouth.

Most young girls abandoned the idea of dolls years before their teenage years, but as he would pass by her bedroom he would smile to himself as he saw a tiny little plastic baby set out over the pillow wrapped up in a hand towel.

It was like a second nature to her to be so loving to everything that needed or wanted it, or that didn't. It almost made the Doctor worry. Worry that maybe it'd come to a point where her need to help people prevented her from taking care of herself.

But as she reached adulthood, he realized that the young little girl taping up the bird's wing that had flown into their window was slowly slipping away. In a way, he always knew that she would leave him for something that needed her full attention and care, but she was his baby girl.

His baby girl, those three words were the reason behind many scorns that wishful suitors received. When she was old enough to, she eventually did leave him. But not for a man, she had proved upon many nights where other girls would be out with boys that a man was not something she wanted in life although one night she had mentioned that it would be a delightful bonus.

She had left him for a child. He wasn't stupid, so he didn't believe for one second that his daughter was as pure as she made out to be. But when she came for a visit that one, pertruding just a little bit, he knew that man or not she was happy.

She had welcomed a baby boy. To which she promptly named him Lincoln. It was not among the least of names that the Doctor had suggested, but when he first caught glance of the dark eyed baby boy he knew it fit perfectly.

It broke her heart that that was the last child she could ever have. The Doctor knew of her dreams, a white picket fence with little feet running around the garden, and it broke his heart to see her so torn apart at the news. Lincoln was always confused as to why his mother started crying every time he mentioned the kids in his class getting little brothers or little sisters.

The Doctor tried his very best to make his daughter happy, to make his grandson happy, but in the end he just overwhelmed his baby girl. She didn't visit weekly anymore heck she barely came by once a year, it wasn't really his fault but it wasn't really hers either.

But one year at Christmas time, he was surprised to see the young loving girl in the form of a depressed lonely woman on his doorstep. Lincoln was rearing the age of his teenage years, and the Doctor was happy to see his other children share with their nephew the things that Lincoln's mother had told them all those years ago.

But what surprised him most was the large cardboard box filled with doll clothes, blankets, and the dolls themselves that Adelina had sent her son to get from their car. She handed it over to the second youngest daughter, his seventh child, giving only a warning to take care very good care of them.

He hadn't seen much of his Adelina since, and what made it even worse was that only the three children that had followed her missed her absence. The other nine never even noticed she wasn't there, but then again she had left before they were old enough to remember.

He missed his baby girl, dearly. But then again, she wasn't his anymore. She had been taken into the world, and given back to him.


	2. Keira

The second child the Doctor welcomed was another baby girl three years later. Adelina had fallen in love with her baby sister at first sight, but she would soon realize that the two couldn't be more different. From the time she was born, the air around the Doctor changed from the lulling feeling Adelina had brought to a cold shiver.

She was two when the Doctor first caught his little troublemaker. The fiery red-head was chasing her sister around the yard the day after a horrid downpour. When the pair fell into the mud, Adelina was checking for tears in her little sister's green eyes while Keira took the distraction to take a pile of mud in her hands. She smacked it against the top of her sister's blonde hair, laughing as the little girl screamed running to her father watching from the doorway.

She had earned herself a stern talking to, but then again she had also earned herself a reputation. The only saving grace was when she was about five she had a serious dedication to playing copycat with her sister. After that, she only got worse.

But despite her outrageous behavior that the Doctor liked to deny sometimes, she had developed her father's curiosity. Specifically dedicated to one subject, colors. She was absolutely in love with colors, the colors of things, things that change color, the whole works.

When she reached her teenage years, she started to change her hair color. It started off with red, when one day the Doctor was painting the mantlepiece and the girls were trying their best to help out. Thankfully he had put out a very large tarp and dressed them in very old clothes that barely fit, because Keira seemed to be painting her hair instead of the wall. Despite her sister's advice that her hair was already red, Keira loved the darker shade that the paint was.

Next came blonde, a little bit darker than her sister's though, then came brown, then black. The Doctor was running out of acceptable colors to die her hair when she had decided that she wanted to be blonde again. There was a whole day, after dying it the second time, that Keira sat smiling back at herself in the mirror. It was one of the Doctor's favorite memories of his second daughter.

But unfortunately with that phase through, she quickly made it her ordeal to drive her father insane. Years of short skirts, unannounced hair cuts, even a pierced nostril, later the young troublemaker had been captivated with her nephew Lincoln. Her sister smiled happily, telling her father that she had always had been better at keeping the girl in control.

The troublemaker quickly found that instinct in every woman, the desire to have a family, and she tried desperately among the fellow Gallifreyan boy to convince them she wasn't going to set their house on fire after they let her in. He had once caught the blonde searching through her older sister's closet, which he confronted immediately.

Just before he was sure she was about to give up, there was a traveler that came to town with his son. The Doctor knew the man well, and he decided to have his old friend over one night. The traveler's son became captivated with the second daughter and soon the Doctor's little girl was off hopping from planet to planet.

After welcoming their sixth child, his daughter came back to him telling him of everything she'd seen. She told stories of the neighboring worlds, worlds that the Doctor had never bothered visiting in his travels, when he got the chance to meet his second grandchild. It was a little girl which she called Nemesis, why the Doctor didn't know but he assumed it might be because of her little rebellious stage.

Despite her newfound motherhood, she still didn't seem that interested in her first family. Nemesis was the quiet and shy type so his granddaughter didn't come over as much as a child as Lincoln did. But then again, he only wished to see her more often.

A while later, Nemesis was joined by a little brother by the name of Abraxas. Abraxas was much interested in his mother's younger years, so he spent many of his toddler days sitting across from his grandfather learning of the troubles Keira put Adelina through.

Abraxas became just like his mother, not that the Doctor expected any less, while Nemesis still remained very quiet and shy. The pair joined their parents in the love of traveling, and the Doctor only hoped that the world would bring them home.


	3. Gale

The third child that the Doctor welcomed was his very first baby boy, which he named Gale. Gale had practically no hair, unlike his sisters who had each been born with just a little bit of curls, and his eyes were a brown color. It wasn't until he reached about two and a half that they finally saw the small little bit of brown hair on the boy. But even then, he liked to keep it shaved.

While his sisters either spent their time either nuturing or torturing their fellow Gallifreyans, Gale spent his time looking up. He was captivated by everything above him, the sky, the stars, the sun, everything about it just made him want to float away. Not too many stories of a young Gale could the Doctor remember, as he spent most of his time on his back in the yard looking upwards.

His first son was the quietest child he had ever met to the point where during his second year, the Doctor often worried if his son would ever speak. Not that he didn't know how to, the Doctor often heard small uttered sentences like greetings or thank yous, but the boy seemed to be up in the clouds most of the time that he didn't have anything to say.

As his son grew to the age of nine, his sisters pulled him outside to do things, and the boy found a love of fighting. He would often come home from his training asking to practice the skill moves on his father. The Doctor obliged, happy his son found something other than the sky to love, despite the activities causing him to constantly need an icepack on hand.

But there was a certain memory with his son that he loved to look back on. There apparently was some kind of fire at a very old abandoned building, and his son came rushing home from school asking if they could go down and watch it. They sat and watched the old shoe factory burn to a crisp. And despite it being long and rather dull, he couldn't wipe the image of his son's smile as he told his mother about it from his mind.

The Doctor was certain with the boy training almost every day after school, keeping up with his studies, and helping his sister's with their hair (an activity the boy denied enjoying), that Gale's love of the air had almost disappeared. That was until the letter came.

The letter came at the end of his second to last year in school. There was traveler collecting men for an air war down on Earth, one that required participants to be at least of Gale's age. As the Doctor read the letter he could not ignore the slight glimmer in his son's eye.

With a heavy heart, he let his son go. His daughters had been tearful about it, even Keira shouting at him that he was sending his son off to die. The Doctor tried to push the worries out of his son's mind, he wanted his son to be able to do what he wished without worrying about his family hating him for it but he also couldn't deny the small tears that formed in Gale's eyes as his older sister's door slammed.

When his son returned, he was now a young man but not the same Gale they had known. The Gale they had known was a quiet little boy in love with the air, but he wasn't very quiet the first fight he had with his sister upon returning.

Keira said things she shouldn't have, Gale said things he shouldn't have, and the Doctor could do nothing but sit and watch. As things started flying, he sent his son out of the house, both hearts breaking with the sound of a slamming door.

He had returned to Earth, to continue fighting, and the Doctor couldn't help but think everyday that his son might die over there and he would have done nothing to stop him from going. But then on his birthday the next year, he was delighted at the sight of twins outside his doorstep with his son and a woman smiling back at him.

The twins, Lyra and Milo, were the sweetest things on Earth, because technically Gale had adopted them from Earth. He was glad to have his son back, but he knew it would be short lived, as the twins were not from this planet and they were soon shamed.

The last straw had been when Abraxas had called them human freaks, and Gale knew that for his children's happiness he had to leave again. Back to Earth. The Doctor let him go with a heavy heart, but knew that it was the best for his small little family. He just missed his son.


End file.
